“The data doesn’t lie. The rate of these events just is not increasing as the perception is given in the media. This is just what it is,” he said.

The professor used a decade’s worth of data from USA Today that was cross-checked by the FBI. He said his analysis also found public shooting sprees like the Las Vegas massacre are not the most common type of mass killing. Read the rest of this entry »

At least 50 are dead and 400 others have been injured from the Sunday night massacre.

Amanda Prestigiacomo reports: On Sunday night, at around 10 p.m. local time, a suspected lone gunman identified as Stephen Craig Paddock opened fire at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest country music festival, killing at least 58 people and injuring at least 400 others. Victims’ names have yet to be released, but Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo has confirmed that one officer was killed and another remains in critical condition.

3. According to Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo, the motive remains unclear but is not suspected to be terrorism, meaning it was likely not associated with a political or religious aim.

“No,” said Sheriff Lombardo, when asked the massacre was a suspected “act of terrorism.”

“Not at this point,” he said. “We believe it was a local individual. He resides here locally. I’m not at liberty to give you his place of residence yet, because it’s an ongoing investigation, we don’t know what his belief system was at this time. … Right now we believe he is the sole aggressor at this point and the scene is static.”

Part of the Las Vegas Strip was reportedly shut down on Saturday after a shooter killed one person and wounded another.

The suspect was barricaded inside a bus, as police and tactical teams rushed to the scene and surrounded the vehicle, according to CNN.

“This incident is being treated as a barricade at this time. There is no credible information that there is a second suspect,” Officer Larry Hadfield told CNN.

The Las Vegas police department tweeted at 1:23 p.m. local time, “S. Las Vegas Blvd. between Flamingo and Harmon remains closed due to a barricade subject on bus. Please avoid the area.” At 2:25 p.m. the account tweeted, “North/southbound traffic on Las Vegas Blvd continues to be closed while we work to peacefully resolve this ongoing barricade.” Read the rest of this entry »

In 20 years, the Web might complete its shift from liberator to oppressor. It’s up to us to prevent that.

Jennifer Stisa Granick writes: Twenty years ago I attended my first Def Con. I believed in a free, open, reliable, interoperable Internet: a place where anyone can say anything, and anyone who wants to hear it can listen and respond. I believed in the Hacker Ethic: that information should be freely accessible and that computer technology was going to make the world a better place. I wanted to be a part of making these dreams — the Dream of Internet Freedom — come true. As an attorney, I wanted to protect hackers and coders from the predations of law so that they could do this important work. Many of the people in this room have spent their lives doing that work.

“What does it mean for companies to know everything about us, and for computer algorithms to make life and death decisions? Should we worry more about another terrorist attack in New York, or the ability of journalists and human rights workers around the world to keep working? How much free speech does a free society really need?”

For better or for worse, we’ve prioritized things like security, online civility, user interface, and intellectual property interests above freedom and openness. The Internet is less open and more centralized. It’s more regulated. And increasingly it’s less global, and more divided. These trends: centralization, regulation, and globalization are accelerating. And they will define the future of our communications network, unless something dramatic changes.

Twenty years from now,

• You won’t necessarily know anything about the decisions that affect your rights, like whether you get a loan, a job, or if a car runs over you. Things will get decided by data-crunching computer algorithms and no human will really be able to understand why.

• The Internet will become a lot more like TV and a lot less like the global conversation we envisioned 20 years ago.

• Rather than being overturned, existing power structures will be reinforced and replicated, and this will be particularly true for security.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But to change course, we need to ask some hard questions and make some difficult decisions.

What does it mean for companies to know everything about us, and for computer algorithms to make life and death decisions? Should we worry more about another terrorist attack in New York, or the ability of journalists and human rights workers around the world to keep working? How much free speech does a free society really need?

How can we stop being afraid and start being sensible about risk? Technology has evolved into a Golden Age for Surveillance. Can technology now establish a balance of power between governments and the governed that would guard against social and political oppression? Given that decisions by private companies define individual rights and security, how can we act on that understanding in a way that protects the public interest and doesn’t squelch innovation? Whose responsibility is digital security? What is the future of the Dream of Internet Freedom?

For me, the Dream of Internet Freedom started in 1984 with Steven Levy’s book “Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution.” Levy told the story of old school coders and engineers who believed that all information should be freely accessible. They imagined that computers would empower people to make our own decisions about what was right and wrong. Empowering people depended on the design principle of decentralization. Decentralization was built into the very DNA of the early Internet, smart endpoints, but dumb pipes, that would carry whatever brilliant glories the human mind and heart could create to whomever wanted to listen. Read the rest of this entry »

Cassandra Taloma reports: A 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook Las Vegas and surrounding areas Friday morning. The quake, which hit at 11:47 a.m., was centered about 24 miles south-southwest of Caliente, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

“All of our bridge structures are designed to withstand rigorous wind and earthquake loading. Nevada lies within an active seismic zone, which is something that we take into account during the project design and engineering phase.”

The damage had not been officially linked to the earthquake, but the Nevada Highway Patrol said transportation officials were inspecting the ramp. It was not clear how long it would remain closed. Meanwhile, officers were checking for possible damage at other major freeway interchanges, NHP Trooper Loy Hixson said.

“We are currently inspecting for any potential damage following the recent earthquake in Caliente, including the U.S. Highway 95 southbound ramp to I-15 southbound that is currently closed due to possible structural damage.”

— Tony Illia, Nevada Department of Transportation

The Nevada Department of Transportation won’t be undertaking a widespread inspection of the state’s bridges as a result of the earthquake because most bridges are designed and engineered to withstand small quakes. But a ramp at the Spaghetti Bowl is being checked.

“We are currently inspecting for any potential damage following the recent earthquake in Caliente, including the U.S. (Highway) 95 southbound ramp to I-15 southbound that is currently closed due to possible structural damage,” said Tony Illia, a spokesman for the department. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Costolo’s triumphant tweet could come back to haunt him

The piracy of Saturday’s welterweight boxing championship enabled by Periscope, a livestreaming app recently acquired by Twitter, is setting up a conflict that could be just as brutal. HBO and Showtime, which partnered on what will likely be the most popular boxing pay-per-view event ever, took a one-two punch of their own Saturday. First, they watched multiple pay-TV distributors experience technical problems transmitting the fight, which probably cut into their sales total. But what made matters even worse is that countless people who did pay for the fight used their smartphones to re-transmit the fight to users of Periscope and, to a lesser extent, rival app Meerkat.

Each stream reached hundreds or thousands of non-paying fans with a picture quality that was shaky and pixilated, yet still quite adequate. If Twitter CEO Dick Costolo understood the implications of this activity, he sure didn’t show it in a tweet that declared Periscope the “winner” of the night. There’s no question the app got tremendous exposure that will build nicely off the 1 million downloads impressively achieved in just its first 10 days, a fact Costolo made sure to mention in the company’s underwhelming first-quarter results last week.

But what Costolo needs to be asking himself is if the price of all that publicity may end up too steep if the content companies come after him for backing an app that may be piracy’s biggest facilitator since PopcornTime.

Any pay-TV channel that pays billions to sports leagues for exclusive rights to programming is going to be concerned about what went on Periscope during the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. While piracy via livestream is far from a new phenomenon, it may well have achieved a new level of visibility this weekend.

It would be one thing if Periscope was some rogue player like Napster. But Twitter has plenty of business with Hollywood that requires its content rights and advertising dollars, and the company does not have the leverage of bigger entities in Silicon Valley. Just as piracy via YouTube and Google’s search has impacted how Google and media conglomerates have dealt with each other over the years, Twitter is now heading in the same direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Wesley Juhl reports: Sen. Harry Reid’s brother, Larry Joe Reid, will be charged with drunken driving and a gun charge among others after a run-in with a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, the Clark County district attorney’s office said Thursday.

He faces one count each of driving under the influence, battery of a protected person, possession of a firearm while intoxicated, failing to comply with an officer and not wearing a seat belt.

Arrest records obtained by the Review-Journal said a trooper saw a black SUV driven by Reid enter a dirt median from southbound U.S. Highway 95 near the edge of the Boulder City city limit and the turnoff to Nelson about 12:30 a.m. on Feb. 2.

The trooper approached the SUV to see if there was a mechanical problem he could assist with, the report said, but the trooper could not understand Reid due to his incoherent, slurred speech. The trooper asked Reid if he was all right several times, and Reid responded by asking if he could leave.

When the trooper said no, Reid cursed at him and began to drive off, the report said. The trooper tried to grab the keys out of the ignition and had to jump onto the running board beneath the driver’s side door to avoid being dragged. The two struggled over the steering wheel, and the trooper pointed his weapon at Reid and ordered him to stop. Read the rest of this entry »

“A piece of equipment Senator Reid was using to exercise broke, causing him to fall and break a number of ribs and bones in his face,” according to the statement. “Senator Reid will return to Washington this weekend and be in the office Tuesday as the Senate prepares to reconvene.”

“A piece of equipment Senator Reid was using to exercise broke, causing him to fall and break a number of ribs and bones in his face.”

Adam Jentleson, the senator’s spokesman, told the Associated Press that the accident occurred when an elastic exercise band broke and hit the 75-year-old Reid in the face, causing him to fall. As the senator fell, Jentleson said, Reid struck part of the equipment and broke several bones near his right eye. Reid broke several ribs as he hit the floor. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Lewis writes: It seems rather far fetched at first glance. There is news that came out last week that rogue cell phone towers around the US are forcing mobile devices to disable their encryption making it possible that someone might be able to listen in to your call. “That could never happen to me,” you think out loud. But, apparently it could.

In 2010 at the DEF CON in Las Vegas, security researcher Chris Paget did the unthinkable. He built a cell tower of his own so that he could spoof legitimate towers and intercept calls.The device would mimic the type used by law enforcement agencies to intercept phone calls. In this case, he was able to build it for roughly $1500 US. Paget’s device would only capture 2G GSM phone calls. Carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile would be vulnerable as they use GSM, unlike Verizon which relies on CDMA technology.

I was in attendance for this particular presentation and I had a disposable phone with me at the time. During the presentation when the device was switched on my phone was more than happy to oblige and seamlessly associated with the contraption that was across the room. Had I not been aware that this was going on, it was quite conceivable that I could have not noticed the change to the rogue tower. The point of this presentation was to raise awareness of the security flaws that affect GSM related phones. Read the rest of this entry »

Reid tells News4’s Samantha Boatman his take on the so-called cattle battle in southern Las Vegas. “Well, it’s not over.

Well, yeah it is, Reid. It’s over.

“We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over,” Reid said.

Harry, you represent a Federal government that violates the law every day, and walks away from it. You’re in the worst possible position to make statements like that anywhere near a live microphone. Sit down, shut up.

Liz Fields reports: A Nevada cattle rancher appears to have won his week-long battle with the federal government over a controversial cattle roundup that had led to the arrest of several protesters.

“Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public”

— BLM Director Neil Kornze

Cliven Bundy went head to head with the Bureau of Land Management over the removal of hundreds of his cattle from federal land, where the government said they were grazing illegally.

Bundy claims his herd of roughly 900 cattle have grazed on the land along the riverbed near Bunkerville, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, since 1870 and threatened a “range war” against the BLM on the Bundy Ranch website after one of his sons was arrested while protesting the removal of the cattle.

The Lisboa Palace will have 700 gambling tables, a wedding complex and three hotels, including one designed with Italy’s Gianni Versace fashion house. SJM Holdings managing director Angela Leong, one of Ho’s four wives, was inspired to include a Versace hotel in the complex after staying at a Palazzo Versace in Australia in 2003 (she was there to escape the SARS outbreak).

The project will cost $3.9 billion, SJM executives said, and will include opulent interiors inspired by the Louvre and the Casino at Monte Carlo.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Hannah Dreier reports:Hackers breached the websites of all Las Vegas Sands Corp. websites Tuesday morning, and the home pages of some of the world’s largest casinos remained down through the day.

Patrons got error messages when they tried to visit the home pages of the Venetian casino, famous for its ersatz canals, and the Palazzo casino, which is next door on the Las Vegas Strip. The company’s corporate site was also hacked, as were websites for Sands casinos in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Singapore, and the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.

Las Vegas Sands spokesman Ron Reese said the company was working with law enforcement to determine who was behind the hacking, and assessing the damage. The company could not say whether customer credit-card records had been breached…

According to a Military.com interview with TrackingPoint, Inc., the Army bought six different smart rifles from the company for a price of $10,000 to $27,000, each of which includes a built-in Linux-based computer that uses sensors and scopes to maximize accuracy amidst a variety of conditions like terrain, weather and even the Earth’s rotation.

Jim Edwards reports: Ford’s Global VP/Marketing and Sales, Jim Farley, said something both sinister and obvious during a panel discussion about data privacy today at CES, the big electronics trade show in Las Vegas.

Because of the GPS units installed in Ford vehicles, Ford knows when many of its drivers are speeding, and where they are while they’re doing it.

Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone,” he told attendees.

If this guy doesn’t freak you out, you probably shouldn’t be driving a car

Rather, he said, he imagined a day when the data might be used anonymously and in aggregate to help other marketers with traffic related problems. Suppose a stadium is holding an event; knowing how much traffic is making its way toward the arena might help the venue change its parking lot resources accordingly, he said.

Jim Farley, at right, on a panel with Facebook exec Carolyn Everson at CES today.

Bluffing still matters, but the best players now depend on math theory

By CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS

The World Series of Poker, 2010.

More than 6,300 players, each paying an entry fee of $10,000, gathered in Las Vegas early this month for the championship event of the 44th annual World Series of Poker. The tournament ran for 10 days, and just nine players now remain. They will reunite in November for a two-day live telecast to determine who wins the first prize: $8.3 million.Poker didn’t get this big overnight. In 2003, a then-record 839 players entered the championship for a shot at $2.5 million. The winner was an amateur with the improbable name of Chris Moneymaker. After ESPN devoted seven prime-time hours to his triumph, online poker took off and tournament participation ballooned, as did prize pools. The U.S. government’s ban on the major online poker sites in 2011 reined in enthusiasm, but the game has continued to grow in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

This growth over the past decade has been accompanied by a profound change in how the game is played. Concepts from the branch of mathematics known as game theory have inspired new ideas in poker strategy and new advice for ordinary players. Poker is still a game of reading people, but grasping the significance of their tics and twitches isn’t nearly as important as being able to profile their playing styles and understand what their bets mean.

In no-limit hold’em poker, the game used for the World Series championship, each player is dealt two private cards and attempts to make the best five-card hand that he can by combining his own cards with five cards that are shown faceup and shared by all players. Those cards are revealed in stages: The first three are the “flop,” the fourth is the “turn,” and the fifth is the “river.” Players can bet any amount they like at each stage.

Suppose you hold a pair of sevens, and before the flop is dealt you go all-in (bet all of your chips). One player calls your bet, and everyone else folds their hands. You both turn your cards face up, and you are happy to see your opponent show a pair of sixes. You are in great shape, since you have the better hand. But when the flop arrives, it contains a six, giving your opponent three sixes, and your own hand doesn’t improve, so you lose. Was your all-in play correct?

In terms of results, it wasn’t, because you lost all your chips. But according to the math of hold’em, a pair of sevens is favored to beat a pair of sixes 81% of the time. So if you can go all-in with sevens and get your bet called by players holding sixes over and over again, luck should even out, and eventually you will be a big winner.

The Obama administration sat by doing nothing for seven hours that night, ignoring calls to dispatch help from our bases in Italy, less than two hours away. It has spent the past seven weeks stretching the story out, engaging in misdirection and deception involving supposed indigenous outrage over an obscure anti-Muslim video, confident that with the aid of a docile press corps this infamous climax to four years of misguided foreign policy can be swept under the rug, at least until after Tuesday’s election.